MORE than £3,000 has been raised by ice cream lovers who flocked to marvel at a 35ft Dalek near Nantwich.

The straw sculpture, which moves and shouts out ‘exterminate’, has been keeping watch over Snugburys in Hurleston since August and helping to raise funds for Cancer Research UK through sales of special DaLICK cones.

The charity was chosen as the father of Deb Nowak – a key member of Snugburys’ dairy team – is currently undergoing treatment for cancer.

With the help of Harbook Engineering, Snugburys has been creating straw sculpture for more than 10 years, with this year’s celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dr Who .

In addition to the money raised by the DaLICK cones – which outsold any previous year’s charity cone – the business has also received some other generous donations, including one from Auto Trader magazine, which used photographs of the Dalek to feature in one of its September issues.

Donations, via an honesty box, were also collected from customers who snapped up a share of more than 30kg of Snugburys’ home-grown apples.

Snugburys’ marketing manager Hannah Sadler said: “The DaLICK straw feature has been a huge success this summer and this has been mirrored in the sales of the DaLICK cones.

“Cancer Research UK is a charity a lot of people can relate to so we are thrilled to be able to hand this cheque to them.

“In total we are proud to announce the grand total of £3,084.27.”

Previous straw sculptures have included a polar bear, a meerkat, Big Ben, a windmill, the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank, a rocket, millennium wheel and a dinosaur.